Diet First
May 31st 2007 14:48
In my last post I made some suggestions for beginners using weight training for fitness. In that post I suggested that no exercise program would yield what a beginner is looking for unless it is combined with a diet. Today some comments about how to combine diet and exercise.
If you have returned from the doctor or stepped off the scales and the news was not good, you are probably ready to do something and fast. The problem is that jumping into a severe diet and a jarring new exercise program is a recipe for failure. You have given you body one kind of order for some time: store fat and do not build any muscle.Now, out of the blue you are going to tell it to build muscle at the same time you are restricting its food intake. Your body can adapt, but it will do it at its pace. For awhile it will be like the Coyote in the cartoon, who runs off a cliff and continues to stride until he looks down. Your body will continue to do what it has been told for years and you will have to shock it out of its patterns. If you shock it too much,it will respond with fatigue, injuries, cravings, insomnia, and soreness in the extreme etc. At that point a message will cross the body-mind barrier that what you are doing is insane and the you should revert to the old comfortable ways. And, get this. Many, many people do just that. One of them could easily be you.
I suggest that a better approach is to establish a diet for about three weeks. This is the time it takes your body to decide that the new pattern of behavior is real and at that point it will "get on board" with you and cooperate. This is a good time to start an exercise program,but,as I said in my last post, I would undertake it slowly. Once again it will take your body about three weeks to adapt to exercise and that is how long I would really take it pretty easy. Remember, you will already be eating less. With real exercise you will simultaneously be forcing your body to burn more calories. It will,but not without alerting you through hunger etc. Soon the psychological effects of work and hunger will start whispering that what you are doing is not worth it. Because,however,you will already be four or five weeks into the diet, you will have the psychological lift of seeing some of the results you desire and that will help to sustain you through the period of struggle.
One final comment. If you are using a proper diet, your desire for food will be receding not growing. More on that topic in the next post. Your servant, as always.
If you have returned from the doctor or stepped off the scales and the news was not good, you are probably ready to do something and fast. The problem is that jumping into a severe diet and a jarring new exercise program is a recipe for failure. You have given you body one kind of order for some time: store fat and do not build any muscle.Now, out of the blue you are going to tell it to build muscle at the same time you are restricting its food intake. Your body can adapt, but it will do it at its pace. For awhile it will be like the Coyote in the cartoon, who runs off a cliff and continues to stride until he looks down. Your body will continue to do what it has been told for years and you will have to shock it out of its patterns. If you shock it too much,it will respond with fatigue, injuries, cravings, insomnia, and soreness in the extreme etc. At that point a message will cross the body-mind barrier that what you are doing is insane and the you should revert to the old comfortable ways. And, get this. Many, many people do just that. One of them could easily be you.
I suggest that a better approach is to establish a diet for about three weeks. This is the time it takes your body to decide that the new pattern of behavior is real and at that point it will "get on board" with you and cooperate. This is a good time to start an exercise program,but,as I said in my last post, I would undertake it slowly. Once again it will take your body about three weeks to adapt to exercise and that is how long I would really take it pretty easy. Remember, you will already be eating less. With real exercise you will simultaneously be forcing your body to burn more calories. It will,but not without alerting you through hunger etc. Soon the psychological effects of work and hunger will start whispering that what you are doing is not worth it. Because,however,you will already be four or five weeks into the diet, you will have the psychological lift of seeing some of the results you desire and that will help to sustain you through the period of struggle.
One final comment. If you are using a proper diet, your desire for food will be receding not growing. More on that topic in the next post. Your servant, as always.
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